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(10:30) Monterey - The Transportation Agency of Monterey County is setting up a new account that will be used to make transportation safety improvements. Beginning April 1st measure X will go…Read More

(09:30) Watsonville - The 2nd Saturday on the Farm will be held this weekend. The family fun event offers unique interactive educational activities while learning about agriculture. Some of the activities…Read More

On November 30th, on KSCO Presents Georgia, Georgia tackled the question of the treatment of Men in contemporary society. Georgia described herself as an "anti-feminist" and cites several statistics demonstrating…Read More

After being snarked at by some gutless hecklers, Alex ruminates on the lack of intellectual honesty when hyperbole replaces frank discussion. Your opinion matters. Please leave a comment bellow.
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The following is an encore presentation of an early Kay commentary, and appears in her new book. Here is Kay Zwerling: We started trading with China in the late 1970s. Let’s fast-forward to 2007. U.S. manufacturing is almost nonexistent. Most of it went to China and other countries. China inundates us with enormous amounts of stuff, most of it inferior, and takes only a fraction of our products in return. Our leaders condoned that practice, and now China owns us. When one day a year either makes or breaks the bank, how fragile indeed has our economy become? Decades ago when we manufactured almost everything here in America, the Christmas holiday was just that – a holiday. Retail businesses made money, but the money spent on gifts stayed in American pockets. Now, almost everything is made in China, India, Mexico, and many other countries. Once the money is sent out of the Country, it will never return. If you do not believe this, check the trade imbalances between the U.S. and China. We buy everything from them, while they buy very little from us. It is a lucrative one-sided deal for China and the international corporations who engineered this scheme with the American worker coming out the loser. And, if you think that this stuff on a grand scale is not hurting America – well, listen to this – America’s finances are in such bad shape that China, our so-called most favored trading partner, is taking the billions of American dollars which it has accumulated in this one-sided trade deal, and is now wisely trading them in for Euros and precious metals. As we speak, the dollar is losing value. What is worse, however, is the mindset of the average American who seems to be more concerned about his neighbor’s dog pooing on his lawn, than about the impending collapse of the dollar. I say our government is really worse – nobody is home, and nobody cares. Finally, once the bottom begins to drop out, Americans will eventually get their heads out of the sand, and demand an end to the so-called free-trade schemes and a return to fiscal responsibility, and I say that means we trade 50-50, not 90 from China and 10 from us. However, by that time it may be too late, and a Depression equal or worse than that of the 1930s will be upon us. For KSCO, this is Kay Zwerling.

The long requested book of Kay’s commentaries is now available for purchase online at our KSCO.com website, right on the home page. For $24.95 plus shipping and handling, it’s applicable. Treat yourself to this wonderful book full of Kay’s wisdom, thoughts, and humor. It makes a great gift, and all proceeds support KSCO your favorite radio station. Go to KSCO.com and buy Kay’s book today.

The following commentary appears in Kay Zwerling’s new book. Here is Kay Zwerling:

This is called “My Mother’s Ground.”

I wrote this story about my mother in 1981, two years after her death. I was studying clinical philosophy at that time, a new discipline, which was deep, personal, and analytical, and while I was still missing my mom, I thought about her a great deal then.

Parents and children have powerful and intimate relationships and perspectives about each other. Sometimes positive, sometimes negative, and sometimes neutral. Here I reveal my mother through my own appreciation of being a child, a parent, and a grandparent. I address a philosophical problem, that of finding a sense of groundedness in response to the universal human problem of the abyss – that is, the lack of meaning and aloneness – or nothingness. My mother found her ground in God, and in so many ways, now I do, too.

She came to America from Greece in 1912, or thereabouts, at the age of 16. The fourth in a family of six children, quite poor, she had been a young schoolteacher in her village. Her sister and brother-in-law living in New York sent her the fare to join them in the land of hope and opportunity.

She met and married my father, had three children, became a widow at 42. With the three of us married, or gone soon after, she remained alone in the big house, and somehow managed to make the money last.

I worried and wondered at her aloneness every night. She would say to me “God will take care of me, I’m not afraid.” God was my mother’s ground.

An invalid for six years, and in need of continual custodial care, my 82-year-old mother spent her final years in a local convalescent home. At times, she was amazingly alert. Other times, forgetful. Most often, strangely peaceful and content. In the early days of her confinement, she would often ask in bewilderment “Por que el Dios me hizo esto” (Why did God do this to me?)

Interestingly, after her second stroke, she communicated almost exclusively in Spanish, her native tongue, despite the fact that she had been quite articulate in English.

What made it possible for my mother to face each day with valor, even a smile? And, I used to visit her every day. Her philosophy, which she affirmed each day when we were together “Todo lo que hace Dios es para bien” (Everything that God does is for good). God was my mother’s ground.

In a way, I envied her very much, for I don’t believe she ever allowed herself to see the abyss. She chose very early in her life to insulate herself from the anxiety of nihilism by a total and daily commitment to the will of God.

What a fascinating and incongruous polarity of personality was my mother: A most gentle benign imposition of an iron will in areas concerning her children, and a personal complete and total surrender to the will of God. Indeed, God was my mother’s ground.

For KSCO, this is Kay Zwerling.

The long requested book of Kay’s commentaries is now available for purchase online at our KSCO.com website, right on the home page. For $24.95 plus shipping and handling, it’s applicable. Treat yourself to this wonderful book full of Kay’s wisdom, thoughts, and humor. It makes a great gift, and all proceeds support KSCO your favorite radio station. Go to KSCO.com and buy Kay’s book today.

Now, for many years it has been called the most dangerous organization in the U.S. because it has been highjacked by American and possibly foreign extremists.

It was responsible for prayer being banned in our children’s schools, the Ten Commandments banned from Courtrooms, and manger scenes banned from the public square.

It defends the rights of terrorists over the rights of American citizens, and submits reports to the United Nations to “hold America accountable for human rights violations”.

The United Nations is now a disgusting group who hopes to control America. It started out right after WW2 – to be a place to help countries of the world to learn to get along peacefully.

In fact, the ACLU was part of the lawsuit against Arizona recently for trying to protect America’s borders from illegal immigrants, and the ACLU fights to protect the use of foreign law in America’s Courtrooms.

It has been said that it uses a loophole in the law to force American taxpayers to pay millions of dollars in legal fees to advance its radical agenda.

All this information was gleaned from the envelope of Frontiers of Freedom Foundation, which once again is soliciting for funds to continue to educate the American public.

Much of this information is proof that like ACLU, many organizations which may have started out with good intentions turn out to be self-serving and corrupt. And so it goes. Power so often does corrupt!

For KSCO, this is Kay Zwerling.

The long requested book of Kay’s commentaries is now available for purchase online at our KSCO.com website, right on the home page. For $24.95 plus shipping and handling, it’s applicable. Treat yourself to this wonderful book full of Kay’s wisdom, thoughts, and humor. It makes a great gift, and all proceeds support KSCO your favorite radio station. Go to KSCO.com and buy Kay’s book today.

This interesting information was sent to me recently by the National Taxpayers’ Union – of course, with a request for funds – and that may be a topic for another story.

It is a report on estimated pension benefits for members of Congress convicted of crimes from 1980 to the present. Participation in the pension system is voluntary for members serving prior to 9-30-2003, and the pension amounts are not a matter of public record.

Let us call the following: “A Dirty Secret”.

There are at least 535 people who do not want you to hear this.

Most of them are millionaires. They earn $174,000 per year and work only 104 days a year.

They get automatic pay raises every year unless they turn them down – even if they are not doing a good job. In fact, many have done a terrible job. No problem – they get the money unless they vote not to take it.

There is more – they have a full-time staff at their disposal, generous office expense accounts, top-notch health and life insurance, free parking, and travel to destinations all over the globe – junkets – all subsidized.

Here is the best part – their pension benefits are two to three times more than those in the private sector for similarly salaried executives. Some can receive as much as $125,000 pension a year. They can retire as millionaires.

Here is the kicker – some can even collect their lavish Congressional Pension while serving time in jail for crimes committed while on the job!

All at the expense of hard-working taxpayers.

Many in Congress with integrity believe that their colleagues who are caught in perjury, bribery, and fraud, and are sent to jail – should not continue to receive their pension benefits while in jail – as now that is the case.

The forthcoming Bill called The Congressional Integrity and Pension Forfeiture Bill, if voted on and passed, will eliminate that wasteful expenditure.

I agree that felons in jail should not receive pensions or rewards.

However, it is possible that most Congress people thinking it over may be too ashamed of their felon colleagues and therefore decide better to never allow this Bill to be exposed to the American public.

Because it is too difficult to remain honest – how sad that those We the People place in office to guide and protect us are so often corrupt and disappointing.

For KSCO, this is Kay Zwerling.

The long requested book of Kay’s commentaries is now available for purchase online at our KSCO.com website, right on the home page. For $24.95 plus shipping and handling, it’s applicable. Treat yourself to this wonderful book full of Kay’s wisdom, thoughts, and humor. It makes a great gift, and all proceeds support KSCO your favorite radio station. Go to KSCO.com and buy Kay’s book today.

This is a rough draft of a story – a true story, which will be told, and more importantly dealt with very vigorously by many in our beautiful Santa Cruz because most of us care very much and once we know about it we will be anxious to participate. It is an interesting story which involves loyalty, insincerity, greed, and possibly the hopes of personal wealth. Here goes:

A person in the Watsonville area bought a very beautiful dwelling there recently, but he decided he wanted to move his house to another location despite the fact that moving his recently acquired dwelling would cost a great amount of money, and he purchased a residential lot very close to our County Fairgrounds, and discovered it was too close because of the loud noises that came from the Fairgrounds. Despite that important knowledge, or perhaps because of it, this man moved his house to that area close to the Fairgrounds.

Shortly afterwards he then hired an attorney to plan to encourage the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds to first eliminate the noises and then probably to close down the Fairgrounds altogether.

Why would this man play out this scenario? Could it be that he may be a real estate developer and wants to finally own the Fairgrounds land and develop it into many homes and possibly make a financial killing?

If in fact this is the agenda this man and his attorney plan to pursue, we at KSCO pledge to devote much time, energy, and air time on our radio stations to destroy this plan.

Stay tuned for the fireworks and all future developments. For KSCO and KOMY, this is Kay Zwerling.

As we think about China and how she has so rapidly become a world presence, we may remember Napoleon’s famous description “Let China sleep for when she awakens she will shake the world.”

In 1979, my husband Barry and I were in China just when our two governments agreed to trade with each other. The Chinese people were ecstatic. They dancing in the streets. I wondered how all this would play out. The agrarian country was now becoming a world trader. Let’s fast forward to 2008.

In our eagerness to trade with China, it became – and still is – lopsided. It is called free trade where one side only benefits.

Fair trade is when I give you 50% and you give me back 50%.

Along the way, somehow we seduced ourselves into giving up our own industries which had kept us independent. We thought now being a service-oriented society would be good.

Stupidly, we sent away our American jobs, all our manufacturing, and we sent them to China and India.

The U.S. has really been living in a fools’ paradise on a phony economy. Now we are world dependent. We have helped China to become so wealthy that she owns us, because most of her profits are in billions and are invested in our nation.

A recent interview in Barron’s, the financial periodical, is very compelling. Listen… We have not been through anything like what we are going through now. We have been able to convince the world lately to lend us and to provide us with goods that we do not produce anymore and that we cannot afford to pay for. And now the problem is big, especially since the real estate bubble.

The U.S. is now an empire that is sustained by borrowing from friends and anyone else who will give us credit. Our creditors hold hundreds of billions of dollars, but the dollar continues to weaken and our foreign creditors could take a huge loss in their dollar holdings.

Are we now a global mess?

Did our national leaders err by encouraging us to give up our own industries?

I say we should resurrect what worked for us before – and that is our own industries and reject our dependency on other nations. Now with China and India in the world market, the global workforce is in the billions so the inflation of workers creates resentment and competition. The stage is set to the inevitable confrontation of China and India vs. the U.S. and Europe, and how that situation will play out remains to be seen.

I still say let’s go back to manufacturing which worked for us before. Let’s not wait. Let’s do it now, not later.

For KSCO, this is Kay Zwerling.

The long requested book of Kay’s commentaries is now available for purchase online at our KSCO.com website, right on the home page. For $24.95 plus shipping and handling, it’s applicable. Treat yourself to this wonderful book full of Kay’s wisdom, thoughts, and humor. It makes a great, and all proceeds support KSCO your favorite radio station. Go to KSCO.com and buy Kay’s book today.

The following commentary came out of my book. It was written on May 15, 2009.

Since many of my listeners enjoy senior citizen status or will sometime soon, they may be interested in the following health insurance information.

Most of you know that the Senate version of the recent stimulus Bill includes provision for extensive rationing for senior citizens. The author of this part of the Bill, former Senator and tax evader Tom Daschle, was credited recently with the following statement. Daschle said “Healthcare reforms will not be pain free. Seniors should be accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them.”

Put another way “Do not expect the government to let you have certain expensive procedures or drugs since you are too old and you won’t be around much longer anyway.”

I heard somewhere some unknown heartless lawmaker state that for those over 75 it is our duty to quietly leave willingly since the world is getting too crowded.

About Daschle and his cavalier attitude – and he is a senior also – remember that he and his Congress people do not like our Medicare benefits so some time ago they quietly chose something much fancier and superior that covers them and their spouses for life – and I suspect that We the People pay their premiums – and they do not fall under the same rule as being denied treatment like the rest of us oldies.

And, when they are no longer in Congress, they and their spouses each receive hefty lifetime pensions. Hopefully those of us who can afford private insurance will be able to do so.

However, it bugs me how our leaders take outrageous perks for themselves that We the People pay for and will never know exist or be able to change. It is unpleasant and frustrating.

So, let’s change the subject, and let’s wind this up with a little joke that is floating around.

A U.S. Congressman was seated next to a little girl on the airplane. The Congressman said “Let’s talk. I heard that flights go quicker if we strike up a conversation with a fellow passenger.”

The little girl who had just opened her book, closed it slowly and said to the Congressman “What would you like to talk about?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, “how about the banking crisis?” and smiled.

“OK,” she said, “that could be an interesting and timely topic. But, let me ask you a question first. A horse, a cow, and a deer all eat the same stuff – grass. Yet a deer excretes little pellets while a cow turns out a flat patty, and a horse produces clumps of dried grass. Why do you suppose that is?”

The Congressman, visibly surprised by the little girl’s intelligence, thinks about it and says “Hmm, I have no idea”, to which the little girl replies “Do you really feel qualified to discuss banking when you don’t even know sh** (bleep)?”

What I am about to tell you will shock and anger you – and you will believe it is unbelievable. It happened probably during the Clinton administration, or was occurring about two decades ago.

Let’s call this “Our National Parks now belong to the United Nations”.

Across this great land, our national parks, wildlands, forests, and lakes are being turned over to U.N. control.

This means that under the United Nations Biodiversity Treaty voted upon probably during the Clinton administration, a precious resource owned by American citizens for over 200 years has been turned over to the U.N.’s bureaucrats for control.

You and I will continue to pay taxes for the maintenance and upkeep of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and for Yosemite National Park, and all the other American national parks, but we will no longer own them. Now, the United Nations has ultimate jurisdiction. This alone is startling evidence that the once independent nation-state known as the United States of America is going out with a whimper and not a bang. Our sovereignty may be coming to an end.

How can our leaders allow this?

As a consequence, across the USA, our parks and wilderness areas are slowly being closed to the public. Roads inside the park are being grazed over. Mountain passes and hiking paths are being blockaded.

“No fishing”, “No hunting”, and “No trespassing” signs are being erected everywhere on public lands. Entrance fees are being jacked up 100%, even 500%, higher to keep American families out of their own lands.

Remember listeners, this which I am reading was written years ago.

The U.N. and its elitist masters do not want you on their property, and in case you do trespass and enter forbidden areas of these pristine U.N. lands, you might just be shot.

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service agents and park personnel are now taught to love nature’s Mother Earth and to despise and loath Human Beings. They are being given firearms, and instructed to use them.

Remember listeners, again, that this article was written many years ago. The United Nations are still in control, though We the People of the United States still pay the bills. Interesting arrangements – but many Americans including me are not comfortable with this give-away. I would like to dismiss the U.N. and its uncomfortable agenda and own and control our own national parks.

It is also no secret that the United Nations created after World War 2 to settle affairs between countries now really wants to totally own the U.S. And, that is totally not acceptable! It is like by creating the U.N. we have created a monster who wants to destroy us.

Last Saturday, expecting challenge, I pulled this commentary after its initial reading so I could research the material further.

It appears there are numerous versions of the United Nations’ control over U.S. national parks including a credible 1972 Treaty which does grant the U.N. control over many of our national parks and many other American historical landmarks.

If all this is true, the extent to which we Americans choose to reject United Nations’ gradual takeover of our Country, will determine how much we all care about our own beloved sovereignty. No one person can change it.